What This Is
Know Your Ballot is an independent, nonpartisan voter resource. It is not affiliated with any political party, candidate, campaign, PAC, or government agency. It does not endorse candidates. It assembles the public record — financial disclosures, voting records, court filings, news investigations, government data — and presents it with citations so voters can check the sources themselves.
Source Hierarchy
We prioritize sources in this order:
- Primary government sources: FEC filings, congressional voting records, state legislative records, court filings, official financial disclosures, Census/BLS data, CBO/GAO reports.
- Institutional research: Peer-reviewed studies, university research, CRS reports, inspector general reports.
- Quality journalism: Investigations by Reuters, AP, ProPublica, Indiana Capital Chronicle, The Indiana Citizen, and similar outlets with named reporters and editorial standards.
- Commentary (with caveats): Think tanks (bias noted), domain experts, historical comparisons. These inform interpretation but do not establish facts.
Evidence Standards
Every factual assertion in a candidate profile is categorized:
- Established fact: Supported by at least two independent primary sources. "Independent" means the second source collected, measured, or verified the data with their own methodology — not just cited the same upstream source.
- Strong inference: Supported by at least one primary source, with logical reasoning connecting the evidence to the conclusion. Clearly labeled.
- Informed speculation: Rare. Always labeled. Used only when the pattern of evidence strongly suggests a conclusion that cannot yet be documented.
Citation is not corroboration. Two news articles citing the same FEC filing are one source in two places. We count sources by their origin, not their number.
Steel-Man Standard
Before critiquing any candidate or claim, we present the strongest version of their position. If a candidate has a legitimate defense, we state it. If a claim is partially true, we say what's true before explaining what's misleading. The goal is to help voters make informed decisions, not to prosecute a case.
What We Don't Do
- We do not endorse candidates.
- We do not predict outcomes.
- We do not take editorial positions on policy.
- We do not accept donations from candidates, parties, or PACs.
- We do not use anonymous sources. Every claim traces to a named, linkable source.
Source Verification
Every source cited in this guide is archived to our local database at the time of access. We run automated verification that re-fetches cited URLs and compares the live content to our archived copy. If content has changed or been removed, we flag it and note the discrepancy. This protects against link rot and retroactive editing.
Corrections
If you find an error, please contact us. We will investigate, and if the error is confirmed, we will correct the record and note the correction publicly. Getting it right matters more than being first.
Who Made This
This voter guide is a project by Dave Melsheimer, an independent researcher and software engineer based in Indianapolis, Indiana. It is built using the same forensic analysis infrastructure used for the 365 Days of Claims project, which fact-checks political claims using academic-level sourcing standards.